AG Barr: No Criminal Fraud on a Scale That Would Change Outcome of Election, Trump’s Legal Team Responds
Barr’s statement appears limited to criminal prosecution: “He said people were confusing the use of the federal criminal justice system with allegations that should be made in civil lawsuits. He said such a remedy for those complaints would be a top-down audit conducted by state or local officials, not the U.S. Justice Department.”
In an interview with the Associated Press, Attorney General William Barr indicated that their investigations found no evidence of widespread criminal fraud such that the outcome of the election would change.
While the AP lede is clickbaity, it ignores the fact that most complaints are being pursued via civil channels and not criminal ones.
Bar said “confusing the use of the federal criminal justice system with allegations that should be made in civil lawsuits. He said such a remedy for those complaints would be a top-down audit conducted by state or local officials, not the U.S. Justice Department.”
From the AP:
Attorney General William Barr said Tuesday the Justice Department has not uncovered evidence of widespread voter fraud that would change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
His comments come despite President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that the election was stolen, and his refusal to concede his loss to President-Elect Joe Biden.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Barr said U.S. attorneys and FBI agents have been working to follow up specific complaints and information they’ve received, but they’ve uncovered no evidence that would change the outcome of the election.
“To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election,” Barr told the AP.
The comments are especially direct coming from Barr, who has been one of the president’s most ardent allies. Before the election, he had repeatedly raised the notion that mail-in voter fraud could be especially vulnerable to fraud during the coronavirus pandemic as Americans feared going to polls and instead chose to vote by mail.
Last month, Barr issued a directive to U.S. attorneys across the country allowing them to pursue any “substantial allegations” of voting irregularities, if they existed, before the 2020 presidential election was certified, despite no evidence at that time of widespread fraud. That memorandum gave prosecutors the ability to go around longstanding Justice Department policy that normally would prohibit such overt actions before the election was certified. Soon after it was issued, the department’s top elections crime official announced he would step aside from that position because of the memo.
Trump’s legal team responded almost immediately:
INBOX: Trump legal team responds to Barr pic.twitter.com/syYlQYrYzw
— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) December 1, 2020
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Comments
One vote tells me the system cant be trusted. Recounts in several states makes me think Swamp.
You can’t find anything if you don’t actually look for it first.
Bill Barr has turned out to be a disgrace.
If he’d investigated, he wouldn’t complete it until September 2024, and any results would affect the election. What a waste of air he is.
It doesn’t even take a 3 digit IQ to see very suspicious things that could be federal crimes. The vote dumping evidence looks like probable cause to me. Charge it and let the factfinders at trial sort it out. But don’t refrain from charging it on the excuse that the trial would take too long.
There’s no way to spin this in a way that legitimizes Barr’s behavior here.
Well Attorney General Barr, what are you doing about the regional and statewide fraud that is being uncovered?
If it only impacts local and statewide races, isn’t it still illegal?
Lady Justice if she were actually ever a lady is blind as a bat; but I am certain that she sent in a mail-in ballot for Biden.
Bill Barr is such a DISAPPOINTMENT AND TOTALLY PART OF THE SWAMP. SO SAD THAT WE CANNOT FIND ANYONE TO DEFEND OUR COUNTRY AND HE IS SUCH A DISGRACE. HE SHOULD BE FIRED.
History will not be kind to you Barr.
What a disappointment.
A putz, not a patriot.
If only he was a putz. He’s a rat. And it turns out he’s the biggest one of all.
He single-handedly has doomed America to a coup de grace by biden of the obama firing squad against our country.
No criminal activity…just Democrats being Democrats.
Is Barr trying to retain his position in Biden’s administration? I know that investigations can take a long time, but I also know that political hacks routinely con anyone and everyone to feather their nest. Up until now, I was willing to give Barr the benefit of doubt, now that is stretched to the breaking point.
Barr, no more Fing excuses.
He doesn’t want to be a defendant in any upcoming show trial by Harris/Schumer/Pelosi … and/or part of the fix.
Barr should have been fired a long time ago
Strike 1: “I believe Epstein was not the victim of foul play”.
Strike 2: Durham missing in action.
Strike 3: “No evidence of election fraud.”
YOU’RE OUT.
Trump hired the two WORST AG’s in the history of America
The minute he refused to produce the Durham report before election, Barr needed to go
They all got off free, all of them
Jesus help us cause now the SC will have an excuse NOT to even consider the case…
Barr appointed Durham Special Counsel for the Russia Hoax.
He covered his ass, that’s all.
Covering their ass is the nature of the Beltway, and lining their pockets.
BILL BARR IS A COWARD. HAS DONE NOTHING!!! HE WAS JUST WAITING FOR TRUMP TO NOT GET RE-ELECTED SO HE DOESN’T HAVE TO INVESTIGATE. NOW SAYING NO FRAUD. HE IS THE BIGGEST LOSER AND HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO RESPECT FOR THIS MAN. HE SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF HIMSELF.JUST AWFUL
Fire the son of a bitch right now!!!!
This is the same guy who wouldn’t indict Comey and McCabe when they were caught on the record lying under oath. Barr has been a great disappointment.
Interesting. Barr makes Durham Special Council to continue investigating the Russia hoax under the next administration (Trump or Harris):
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/391506.php
Durham doesn’t seem to do anything. When he comes up empty, Barr hopes it’s Biden and Harris who are saved the trouble of dealing with those crimes — in which they were at least somewhat complicit.
Durham was appointed special counsel, without publicity, on October 19th.
Illegal activities across states lines and an ongoing attempt to steal an election…dripping with RICO and Barr whiffs. Federal postal law violations. Comrade Barr is a tool of the Deep State. Sessions and Barr are true GOPe Copperheads.
However… one remedy he mentions is a full top-down AUDIT. He is so narrow in his view of the law that Milhouse looks radical.
It’s like Q said in one of its last posts — too bad about the presidency, had to be this way, but nobody can stop what’s coming — an AUDIT!!
That’ll teach the deep state a lesson. Circle jerk.
Certainly, only my opinion, but, I the the prez and the AG are playing rope a dope with the media.
“playing rope a dope with the media.”
I sure hope so!
I doubt it.
Being feckless – or intentionally negligent – allows the lies of the corrupt to be cemented in people’s heads, and creates inertia too powerful to go up against, even with massive claims.
Trump may play 4D games, but Barr never has.
It’s apparent Barr sold us out.
Oh, come off it. Throughout his entire tenure, Barr has not performed ONE redeeming action.
Tits on a boar. Seriously.
I hope you are right, my Beltway experience was that everything looked great, right up to the point that they stuck a knife in your back.
It would be nice to think so, but I don’t buy it:
1) Barr said that Epstein committed suicide;
2) Barr had the Huber material on the Clinton Foundation (etc.) sent to Durham, and is now saying that Durham’s scope is limited to FBI (underlings?);
3) Barr told us that the Durham report was supposed to be out last May, then August, then not before the election so as to “avoid” interference … now implicitly not until the Biden administration (should the coup succeed) which mean never. If nothing else, why no interim report?
Words mean things and what he said was they did find problems just not to the level yet they need.
He said the same thing he always says: “Not my chob.”
Limited hangout. Except here it’s not even credible — those massive digital vote dumps and switches are obviously big enough to swing the election, and the evidence is credible and worthy of investigation.
Pretending it isn’t there is simply lying, which is what Barr just did. Why don’t the Senate Republicans rush back and put Barr under oath and ask about this?
Let’s think about this rationally for a moment. What is more logical: that the entire U.S. justice system (judges and attorneys) as well as the legislatures and administrative officers of almost every state were engaged in some grand conspiracy to take down President Trump – and only President Trump (because of the overwhelming down-ballot success of Republicans) – and left no convincing evidence? Or, that the majority of voters in the election liked Republican policies, but couldn’t stomach the thought of four more years of tweeting craziness from the Commander-in-Chief? If you remove yourself from the echo chamber of OANN and Parler and Red State and actually talk to normal Americans who don’t obsessively follow politics as a passion, you will find that in this pandemic year people want calm, steady, and reassuring leadership. They don’t want to see a president standing at a podium whining about journalists being mean to him. Or constantly filling up their in-boxes with emails from his kids soliciting money for his coffers while reminding everyone how rich and successful he is. It’s Occam’s Razor.
It seems they left A LOT of “convincing evidence”.
But when the cops are as corrupt as the crooks, we have the present situation.
Apply Ocam’s razor to the election of so many Republican Congressional candidates, and it’s absurd that Biden got more votes than Obama, let alone Trump.
Yes, let us think rationally about this.
Why would a candidate, who is leading by nearly or double digits, percentage wise, suddenly see a staggering reversal in the direction of the votes, in the middle of the night? Why did this happen when authorized observers were either absent, barred from observing or placed on a position where they could not see what was transpiring? Why did so many blatant irregularities occur in the vote count?
Then we have the non-campaign run by the “winning” candidate. The man did not campaign in any meaningful way, did not meet any of the historic benchmarks for a Presidential win and has no personal following. He was scandal ridden.
Then we have the campaign run by the incumbent. He ran a highly aggressive campaign. He had a huge personal following. He hit every single historic benchmark for election. And, he had put all the false scandals to bed.
Yet, you would have us believe that 80+ million people woke up one morning and decided to vote AGAINST the incumbent? An incumbent who had given them the greatest economy in over a decade. Who had a vaccine for a pandemic waiting in the wings. Who was the least racist, most transparent President in history. Who was the most responsive President in American history to minority wants and needs. Why would they vote against their own interests?
Yes, let us apply some logic and rationally thought about this whole thing. It would be refreshing for a change.
It is not just Detroit in Michigan, and the same is probably true in many other states.
Hear.
Hear.
Stick it to DEM Mac.
“Normal Americans” who don’t follow politics would certainly not be following Trump’s Twitter account so would not be aware of what he’s tweeting. And Trump has not been whining about journalists being mean to him. Any functioning adult who has observed and listened to a press conference can see the disrespect and disdain shown to Trump for themselves. Have you forgotten that the Speaker of the House of Representatives herself ripped up Trump’s speech on national television?
Try again.
“If you remove yourself from the echo chamber of OANN and Parler and Red State and actually talk to normal Americans who don’t obsessively follow politics as a passion, you will find that in this pandemic year people want calm, steady, and reassuring leadership.”
Now, this is a prime exhibit of leftist’s war on language. Notice “echo chamber” is used to qualify Parler – that unlike Twitter does not censor disfavored opinions – and thus does no longer mean “where you only can hear your opinion reflected back on you” but “where you can also hear opinions I, RNJD, and my fellow ideological travelers don’t hold”.
Nice try. I’ll pass. Words do have meaning. Preference is not “offensive” even if somehow leftists get a formerly reliable dictionary to change its contents overnight to scrape to the progresive mob. And “echo chamber” is not whatever allows non-leftist thought to be heard.
“Normal Americans” are, at best, sheep, at worst, asleep at the switch. They’ve been the targets of a long-term and comprehensive effort to stupefy them. (See the Wikileaks Podesta email in which a Democrat operative bemoans Hillary’s weakness as a candidate despite the decades the party has devoted to creating “an unaware and compliant citizenry.” https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3599)
If we’re “obsessed,” it’s because we’re paying attention and it’s important.
Really???
If any of the report of election fraud coming out of Detroit, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Las Vegas are true there is overwhelming evidence that federal crimes occurred. Whether they changed the outcome of the election is moot, as far a criminal investigation and prosecution is concerned. And, an investigation might actually reveal fraud on a scale which would change the outcome of the election. It seems that if anyone is confusing civil and criminal law, it is the Attorney General of the United States. It is Comey in a Barr suit.
Barr turned out to be the biggest rat of all.
“…an investigation might actually reveal fraud on a scale which would change the outcome of the election…”
Exactly. Fraud isn’t a daylight bank robbery, it’s meant to go undetected. If you don’t look for it, it is not found. We have reason to believe it is present in this situation. Just because we can see evidence of it doesn’t mean that we understand its scope or its impact.
If you expected Barr to say anything different at this point, I’m sorry you’re going through this now. He’s done nothing since he became AG to indicate he’s there to clean anything up or prosecute any crimes. He left Wray in charge of the FBI. Zero prosecutions for anything related to Obamagate – and that’s after clear and irrefutable evidence that people lied to Congress and the DOJ. The same thing he let Roger Stone get prosecuted for… after sending 15 agents and a CNN crew to bust down his door at 4am.
Not sure why anyone would think he’s up for this moment. His entire history in public life has been to cover things up – Hello, Ruby Ridge!
The main problem with Barr’s statement at this point is this is the headline that will run in every newspaper and MSM chyron for the next week. This is just another way they’ll gaslight us.
Did you even look, Bill?
Guys,
Looking for Barr or any other AGUS to swoop in between election day 3 NOV and the states selection of their electors 14 DEC to gather evidence, bring charges, win conviction and place the election results into dispute is asinine. It ain’t his job and if it were it couldn’t be done.
The campaign has to act. They have to do the hard work of gathering evidence presented the evidence and overcoming the obvious reluctance of the judiciary to act. The Trump campaign and it’s allies have done a pretty good job of gathering evidence. Less well at presenting it. That’s all they can control.
If the judiciary is hostility reluctant because of partisan reasons or reasons of temperance or philosophy to act that isn’t something that anyone can overcome whether they are the AGUS or a private counsel.
That said what should we expect? IMO a deep dive into the issues in a handful of precincts/counties in a few states where the statistics show anomalies. Hold all the evidence and allow discovery via deposition and audit of the circumstances leading to these anomalies. Either the fraud is there or it isn’t. Personally, I believe it exists but it can’t be proven without a vigorous investigation.
At a minimum we, and the rest of the nation, have seen the playbook; loosened mail in voting eligibility criteria and abandonment of ID safeguards like signature verification, witness requirements and address requirements. These coupled with preexisting issues of poorly maintained voter registration lists and local or state officials issuing ‘guidance’ without legislative consent turned the process into a farce.
I would still say there remains an outside shot at stopping this in SCOTUS via the lack of specific legislative consent for many of the process/procedure changes imposed by SoS or local elections officials. No legislation authorized the change so all changes are unlawful and any ballots counted as a result must be tossed. Failure of the state or local officials to create a system which allows for an audit, by tossing out envelope which ID the ballot, is IMO, spoilation of evidence.
The DoJ has apparently asked for and received the data collected from the voter integrity project related to fraudulent ballots in the swing states. The DoJ has far more resources to investigate and act upon that data than a private group. Let it play out.
In the meantime, I would submit that most readers here don’t live in Madison or Milwaukee WI; Detroit MI, Atlanta GA, Las Vegas NV, Philadelphia PA, ie the problematic precincts and states. We don’t have direct influence in those jurisdiction.
We can act within our county and our state to work to make sure our own jurisdiction do not fall prey to such things. We can work to influence our federal Congressional delegations to push back against these rouge precincts by asking them to refuse every request for federal dollars in those districts.
As I advised throughout the summer and fall; get involved in your local elections. Research what the laws and procedures are. Find out what the ‘mechanics’ of the process for ballot handling are in your county. Volunteer as a poll watcher or election observer. Join with like minded folks locally and let it be known that someone is paying attention to the actions of the local elections officials.
Don’t depend on some outside entity; the feds, to ride in and save the day. Make a commitment to do the heavy lifting where you live.
Dec 14 is not when the electors are chosen; it’s when they meet and vote. The choice happened on Nov 3, and most states have already determined the result of that choice. That determination has to be made by Dec 8.
Milhouse,
Yes thank you. The electors are ‘confirmed’ by the 8 DEC safe harbour date. I got carried away in my screed. In any event the point remains that it ain’t DoJ job to intervene nor should we want it to be. Even if it was their job, mounting and finishing a case between election day and safe harbor day is a stretch.
Thanks for the clarification.
John Durham Appointed as Special Counsel to Keep Obamagate Investigation Active
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2020/12/01/breaking-john-durham-appointed-as-special-counsel-to-keep-obamagate-investigation-active-n1183922
At least one good note –
Seems to me that if you haven’t investigated any of the fraud claims thoroughly then making sweeping statements like this is problematic…mainly because no criminal investigation has actually taken place.
So I’m struggling to understand why exactly Barr would do this…even if his comments are supposedly narrow given how the media would run with this as evidence of NO fraud etc.
It must be pointed out that the Constitution allows for the voting methods to be determined by the state legislatures, except whatever the Congress decides. This makes most of the election fraud a state offense, outside of Barr’s immediate purview.
Now, of course, when 100’s of thousands of ballots are trucked across state lines, all of that changes.
TheFineReport.com@4:00 pm:
If only he was a putz. He’s a rat. And it turns out he’s the biggest one of all.
The worst kind of rat, one who sanctimoniously and smugly says the “right” thing to create a sense of hope and justice, but then does nothing but run out the clock. He had me fooled.
Barr ≡ Lucy as she snatches the football (i.e., justice) away just as Charlie Brown (i.e., we conservative citizens) was (were) kicking the ball. Heavy sign.
I just can’t rationalize Barr’s motive. Money? Power? Be liked by his friends? Extortion? (Ah…. Like John Roberts? Like John Boehner?)
Ocam’s Razor votes: extortion.
I think the razor equally falls on “wants a position in Biden’s administration”.
Are election systems not within the provenance of the individual state?
Barr is probably right, this is not a federal matter, though it would seem that there are criminal violations that would proceed at the state level.
Trump’s finest hour was in preventing Hillary. He has remained a steadfast outsider trying to operate in a system so subverted that none of the federals should ever have been relied on.
This is not a swamp problem so much as a decrepit ship that needs to be foundered.
As Reverend Wright meant to say, “goddamn the socialist democrats”. That was before Obama threw him under the bus and went directly to Satan.
:Mail-in Ballots”… pause for a second… USPS is involved with interstate transport of said ballots. Coordinated early AM pauses… RICO. I can think of plenty of Federal issues.
Yeah, that is a path for prosecution for crimes that are outside the the various state electoral programs.
It is a regrettable circumstance where the government is actively colluding to thwart democracy.
No one believes that Joe Biden is competent to hold office, he cannot even read a simple sentence, rarely appears in daylight and never participates in the real world.
As Reverend Wright would say “goddamn Joe Biden”.
“Interstate conspiracies” (e.g., RICO) are indeed federal purview. Try again.
Nice to know vote fraud is the perfect crime, wonder how I can get in on the act?
Kiss Hillary’s or Pelosi tail.
Vote fraud all playing out in many states exactly the same way, Trump ahead, vote reporting stops, Democrats don’t stop, massive mail or computer vote dumps, once Sundowner is ahead even keel with the rest of votes in the same percentage sure seems like interstate fraud.
Barr is a disappointment. He is a cover up artist and good at what he does. He’s Mueller buddy and ex CIA. Opposite side from Trump.
Dear God this man is even worse than Sessions.
TRAITOR AT ITS WORST FORM. LYING POS
Occam’s Razor: a scientific and philosophical rule that entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily which is interpreted as requiring that the simplest of competing theories be preferred to the more complex or that explanations of unknown phenomena be sought first in terms of known quantities.
Barr is being extorted.
“”their investigations found no evidence of widespread criminal fraud such that the outcome of the election would change.””
They forgot to check his department.
Whether or not the election would be affected is immaterial, and outside the scope of Barr’s mandate. The primary question for Barr is, “Did criminal fraud occur?”.
Even limited to criminal fraud his statement is nonsense. Is he saying that stuffing 100k ballots isn’t a Federal crime?
Supposedly he didn’t say that: AP distorted his statement.
Is Jeff Sessions still available?